THE RHETORICAL, IMPASSIONED AND LOFTY STYLES:
Macaulay and De Quincey. The familiar style of the humorist is almost
universal in its availability. It is the style of conversation, to
a great extent―at least of the best conversation,―of letter-writing,
of essay-writing, and, in large part, of fiction. But there are moments
when a different and more, hard and artificial style is required. These
moments are few, and many people never have them at all. Some people
try to have them and thereby fall into the fault of “fine writing.”
But it is certainly very important that when the great moment comes we
should be prepared for it. Then a lofty and more or less artificial
style is demanded as imperatively as the key-stone of an arch when
the arch is completed except for the key-stone. Without the ability
to write one lofty sentence, all else that we have said may completely
fail of its effect, however excellent in itself.
There are three kinds of prose which may be used on such occasions
as we have described. The lowest and most common of these, as it is
the most artificial and most easily acquired, is the rhetorical, or
oratorical, style, the style of all orators, the style which is called
eloquence. Of course we may find specimens of it in actual oratory, but
it is best illustrated in its use for written compositions in Macaulay.
The next variety, more rarely used, was especially developed if not
actually invented by De Quincey and was called by him impassioned prose.
It would seem at first that language could go no higher; but it does
mount a little higher simply by trying to do less, and we have loftiness
in its plain simplicity, as when man stands bareheaded and humble in the
presence of God alone.
Macaulay's style is highly artificial, but its rotundity, its movement,
its impressive sweep have made it popular. Almost any one can acquire
some of its features; but the ease with which it is acquired makes it
dangerous in a high degree, for the writer becomes fascinated with it and
uses it far too often. It is true that Macaulay used it practically all
the time; but it is very doubtful it Macaulay would have succeeded so well
with it to-day, when the power of simplicity is so much better understood.
De Quincey's “impassioned prose” was an attempt on his part to imitate
the effects of poetry in prose. Without doubt he succeeded wonderfully;
but the art is so difficult that no one else has equalled him and prose
of the kind that he wrote is not often written. Still, it is worth
while to try to catch some of his skill. He began to write this kind of
composition in “The Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” but he reached
perfection only in some compositions intended as sequels to that book,
namely, “Suspiria de Profundis,” and “The English Mail Coach,” with its
“Vision of Sudden Death,” and “Dream-Fugue” upon the theme of sudden death.
What we should strive for above all is the mighty effect of simple and
bare loftiness of thought. Masters of this style have not been few,
and they seem to slip into it with a sudden and easy upward sweep that
can be compared to nothing so truly as to the upward flight of an eagle.
They mount because their spirits are lofty. No one who has not a lofty
thought has any occasion to write the lofty style; and such a person
will usually succeed best by paying very little attention to the manner
when he actually comes to write of high ideas. Still, the lofty style
should be studied and mastered like any other.
It is to be noted that all these styles are applicable chiefly if not
altogether to description. Narration may become intense at times,
but its intensity demands no especial alteration of style. Dialogue,
too, may be lofty, but only in dramas of passion, and very few people
are called upon to write these. But it is often necessary to indicate
a loftier, a more serious atmosphere, and this is effected by
description of surrounding details in an elevated manner.
One of the most natural, simple, and graceful of lofty descriptions
may be found in Ruskin's “King of the Golden River,” Chapter III,
where he pictures the mountain scenery:
It was, indeed, a morning that might have made any one happy, even with
no Golden River to seek for. Level lines of dewy mist lay stretched
along the valley, out of which rose the massy mountains,―their lower
cliffs in pale gray shadow, hardly distinguishable from the floating
vapor, but gradually ascending till they caught the sunlight, which
ran in sharp touches of ruddy color along the angular crags, and
pierced in long, level rays, through their fringes of spear-like Pine.
Far above, shot up splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and
shivered into myriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak
of sunlit snow, traced down their chasms like a line of forked lightning;
and, far beyond, and far above all these, fainter than the morning cloud,
but purer and changeless, slept in the blue sky, the utmost peaks of the
eternal snow.
If we ask how this loftiness is attained, the reply must be, first,
that the subject is lofty and deserving of lofty description.
Indeed, the description never has a right to be loftier than the
subject. Then, examining this passage in detail, we find that the
words are all dignified, and in their very sound they are lofty, as
for instance “massy,” “myriads,” “castellated,” “angular crags.”
The very sound of the words seems to correspond to the idea. Notice
the repetition of the letter _i_ in “Level lines of dewy mist lay
stretched along the valley.” This repetition of a letter is called
alliteration, and here it serves to suggest in and of itself the idea
of the level. The same effect is produced again in “streak of sunlit
snow” with the repetition of _s_. The entire passage is filled with
_alliteration,_ but it is used so naturally that you would never think
of it unless your attention were called to it.
Next, we note that the structure rises gradually but steadily upward.
We never jump to loftiness, and always find it necessary to climb there.
“Jumping to loftiness” is like trying to lift oneself by one's
boot-straps: it is very ridiculous to all who behold it. Ruskin begins
with a very ordinary sentence. He says it was a fine morning, just as any
one might say it. But the next sentence starts suddenly upward from the
dead level, and to the end of the paragraph we rise, terrace on terrace,
by splendid sweeps and jagged cliffs, till at the end we reach “the
eternal snow.”
Exercise.
The study of the following selections from Macaulay and De Quincey may
be conducted on a plan a trifle different from that heretofore employed.
The present writer spent two hours each day for two weeks reading this
passage from Macaulay over and over: then he wrote a short essay on
“Macaulay as a Model of Style,” trying to describe Macaulay's style as
forcibly and skillfully as Macaulay describes the Puritans. The resulting
paper did not appear to be an imitation of Macaulay, but it had many of
the strong features of Macaulay's style which had not appeared in previous
work. The same method was followed in the study of De Quincey's “English
Mail Coach,” with even better results. The great difficulty arose from
the fact that these lofty styles were learned only too well and were not
counterbalanced by the study of other and more universally useful styles.
It is dangerous to become fascinated with the lofty style, highly useful
as it is on occasion.
If the student does not feel that he is able to succeed by the method of
study just described, let him confine himself to more direct imitation,
following out Franklin's plan.
THE PURITANS.
(From the essay on Milton.)
By T. B. Macaulay.
We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of men,
perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous
parts of their character lie on the surface. He that runs may read
them; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to
point them out. For many years after the Restoration, they were the
theme of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the
utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, when the press
and the stage were most licentious. They were not men of letters;
they were, as a body, unpopular; they could not defend themselves;
and the public would not take them under its protection. They
were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies
of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their
dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their
long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they
introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their
destestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the
laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy
of history is to be learnt. And he who approaches this subject should
carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has
already misled so many excellent writers.
. . . . . . . .
Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their measures
through a long series of eventful years, who formed out of the most
unpromising materials, the finest army that Europe has ever seen, who
trampled down King, Church, and Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals
of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible
to every nation on the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics.
Most of their absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of
freemasonry, or the dress of the friars. We regret that these badges
were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose courage and
talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty
elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First,
or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second
was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio
in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's
head and the Fool's head and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals
the treasure.
The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character
from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests.
Not content with acknowledging in general terms an overruling
Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the
Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection
nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him,
was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt
the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure
worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the
Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his
intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence
originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference
between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when
compared with the boundless intervals which separated the whole race
from him on whom their eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no
title to superiority but his favor; and, confident of that favor, they
despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world.
If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets,
they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not
found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life.
If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions
of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not
made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade
away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked
down with contempt: for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious
treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles' by the right
of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.
The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and
terrible importance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of
light and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined,
before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should
continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which
shortsighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on
his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed.
For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the
Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common
deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the
sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was
for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that
the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the suffering of her
expiring God.
Thus the Puritans were made up of two different men, the one all
self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the other proud, calm,
inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his
Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional
retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears.
He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the
lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam
of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting
fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the
millienial year. Like Fleetwood he cried in the bitterness of his soul
that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the
council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous works of the
soul had left no perceptible trace behind them.
People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard
nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh
at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in
the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought
to civil affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose
which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal,
but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity
of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other.
One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred,
ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms.
They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows,
but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics,
had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice,
and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It
sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose
unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegal's iron man
Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling
with human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities,
insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by
any weapon, not to be withstood by aһ barrier.
Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive
the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom of their
domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often
injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach: and we know
that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the
worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity,
that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and
their De Montforts, their Dominics and their Escobars. Yet, when all
circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to
pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body.
Notes.
The most casual examination of Macaulay's style shows us that the words,
the sentences, and the paragraphs are all arranged in rows, one on this
side, one on that, a column here, another just like it over there,
a whole row of columns above this window, and a whole row of columns
above that window, just as bricks are built up in geometrical design.
Almost every word contains an antithesis. The whole constitutes what
is called the _balanced structure_.
We see also that Macaulay frequently repeats the same word again and
again, and the repetition gives strength. Indeed, repetition is necessary
to make this balanced structure: there must always be so much likeness and
so much unlikeness―and the likeness and unlikeness must just balance.
We have shown the utility of variation: Macaulay shows the force there
is in monotony, in repetition. In one sentence after another through
an entire paragraph he repeats the same thing over and over and over.
There is no rising by step after step to something higher in Macaulay:
everything is on the dead level; but it is a powerful, heroic level.
The first words repeated and contrasted are press and stage. The sentence
containing these words is balanced nicely. In the following sentence we
have four short sentences united into one, and the first clause contrasts
with the second and the third with the fourth. The sentence beginning
“The ostentatious simplicity of their dress” gives us a whole series of
subjects, all resting on a single short predicate―“were fair game for
the laughers.” The next sentence catches up the, word “laughers” and
plays upon it.
In the second paragraph we have as subject “those” followed by a whole
series of relative clauses beginning with “who,” and this series again
rests on a very short predicate―“were no vulgar fanatics.”
And so on through the entire description, we find series after series,
contrast after contrast; now it is a dozen words all in the same
construction, now a number of sentences all beginning in the same way
and ending in the same way.
The first paragraph takes up the subject of the contrast of those who
laughed and those who were laughed at. The second paragraph enlarges
upon good points in the objects of the examination. The third paragraph
describes their minds, and we perceive that Macaulay has all along been
leading into this by his series of contrasts. In the fourth paragraph
he brings the two sides into the closest possible relations, so that the
contrast reaches its height. The last short paragraph sums up the facts.
This style, though highly artificial, is highly useful when used in
moderation. It is unfortunate that Macaulay uses it so constantly.
When he cannot find contrasts he sometimes makes them, and to make
them he distorts the truth. Besides, he wearies us by keeping us too
monotonously on a high dead level. In time we come to feel that he is
making contrasts merely because he has a passion for making them, not
because they serve any purpose. But for one who wishes to learn this
style, no better model can be found in the English language.
DREAM-FUGUE
On the Theme of Sudden Death.*
By Thomas De Quincey.
*“The English Mail-Coach” consists of three sections, “The Glory of
Motion,” “vision of Sudden Death,” and “Dream-Fugue.” De Quincey
describes riding on the top of a heavy mail-coach. In the dead of
night they pass a young couple in a light gig, and the heavy mail-coach
just escapes shattering the light gig and perhaps killing the young
occupants. De Quincey develops his sensations in witnessing this
“vision of sudden death,” and rises step by step to the majestic beauty
and poetic passion of the dream-fugue.
“Whence the sound
Of instruments, that made melodious chime,
Was heard, of harp and organ; and who moved
Their stops and chords, was seen; his volant touch
Instinct through all proportions, low and high,
Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue.”
Paradise Lost, Book XI.
_Tumultuosissimamente_.
Passion of sudden death! that once in youth I read and interpreted by
the shadows of thy averted signs!―rapture of panic taking the shape
(which amongst tombs in churches I have seen) of woman bursting her
selpuchral bonds―of woman's ionic form bending forward from the ruins
of her grave with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped,
adoring hands―waiting, watching, trembling, praying for the trumpet's
call to rise from dust forever! Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering
humanity on the brink of mighty abysses!―vision that didst start back,
that didst reel away, like a shivering scroll before the wrath of fire
racing on the wings of the wind! Epilepsy so brief of horror, wherefore
is it that thou canst not die? Passing so suddenly into darkness,
wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral blights upon
the gorgeous mosaic of dreams? Fragments of music too passionate,
heard once and heard no more, what aileth thee, that thy deep rolling
chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep,
and after forty years, have lost no element of horror?
I.
Lo, it is summer―almighty summer! The everlasting gates of life and
summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean tranquil and verdant as
a savannah, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are
floating―she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker.
Both of us are wooing gales of festive happiness within the domain
of our common country, within that ancient watery park, within that
pathless chase of ocean, where England takes her pleasure as a huntress
through winter and summer, from the rising to the setting sun. Ah,
what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was suddenly revealed,
upon the tropic islands through which the pinnace moved! And upon her
deck what a bevy of human flowers―young women how lovely, young men bow
noble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting toward us amidst
music and incense, amidst blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi
from vintages, amidst natural carolling, and the echoes of sweet
girlish laughter. Slowly the pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us,
and silently she disappears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows.
But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music, and the carols,
and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter,―all are hushed. What evil
has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaking her? Did ruin to our
friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the shadow
of death? I looked over the bow for an answer, and, behold! the pinnace
was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more; the glory
of the vintage was dust; and the forests with their beauty were left
without a witness upon the seas. “But where,” and I turned to our crew―
“where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and
clustering corynibi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced
with _them?_” Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the
masthead, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out, “Sail on
the weather beam! Down she comes upon us; in seventy seconds she
also will founder,”
II.
I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed. The sea
was rocking, and shaking with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sat
mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral
aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a
crossbow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. “Are they mad?”
some voice exclaimed from our deck. “Do they woo their ruin?”
But in a moment, as she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady
current or local vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off
she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst
the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps in malice
opened ahead to receive her, the billows were fierce to catch her.
But far away she was borne upon the desert spaces of the sea: whilst
still by sight I followed her, she ran before the howling gale,
chased by angry sea-birds and by maddening billows: still I saw her,
as at the moment when she ran past us, standing amongst the shrouds,
with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood,
with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tackling―rising,
sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying―there for leagues I saw her as
she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery
crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm; until at last,
upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden
forever in driving showers; and afterwards, but when I know not, nor how.
Notes.
De Quincey's “Dream-Fugue” is as luxuriant and extravagant a use of
metaphor as Macaulay's “Puritans” is of the use of antithesis and the
balanced structure. The whole thing is a metaphor, and every part is a
metaphor within a metaphor.
This is much more than mere fine writing. It is a metaphorical
representation of the incident he has previously described. In that
incident he was particular struck by the actions of the lady. The young
man turned his horse out of the path of the coach, but some part of the
coach struck one of the wheels of the gig, and as it did so, the lady
involuntarily started up, throwing up her arms, and at once sank back
as in a faint. De Quincey did not see her face, and hence he speaks
in this description of “averted signs?” The “woman bursting her
sepulchral bonds” probably refers to a tomb in Westminster Abbey which
represents a woman escaping from the door of the tomb, and Death, a
skeleton, is just behind her, but too late to catch her “arching foot”
as she flies upward―presumably as a spirit.
So every image corresponds to a reality, either in the facts or in
De Quincey's emotion at the sight of them. The novice fails in such
writing as this because he becomes enamored of his beautiful images and
forgets what he is trying to illustrate. The relation between reality
and image should be as invariable as mathematics. If such startling
images cannot be used with perfect clearness and vivid perception of
their usefulness and value, they should not be used at all. De Quincey
is so successful because his mind comprehends every detail of the scene,
and through the images we see the bottom truth as through a perfect
crystal. A clouded diamond is no more ruined by its cloudiness than
a clouded metaphor.
As in Ruskin's description of the mountain, we see in this the value
of the sounds of words, and how they seem to make music in themselves.
A Word lacking in dignity in the very least would have ruined the whole
picture, and so would a word whose rotund sound did not correspond
to the loftiness of the passage. Perhaps the only word that jars is
“English three-decker”―but the language apparently afforded De Quincey
no substitute which would make his meaning clear.